Weather Radios Save Lives

Article reprinted from the UGA Office of Security & Emergency Preparedness’ March 2007 bulletin Readiness Rules

On Thursday, March 1, merely days after the state of Georgia—including the University of Georgia—participated in a statewide severe weather drill, tornadoes killed 19 people in Alabama and Georgia. Despite early warning sirens that alerted the town’s 20,000 residents before the tornado hit, eight students at Enterprise High School in Enterprise, Alabama were killed while sheltering in the hallways according to their school’s emergency plan. This tragic event may make you wonder about the usefulness of emergency planning and sheltering from storms. However, if you followed the news as the tornadoes tore across Alabama and Georgia, you heard hundreds of stories from survivors who took shelter in hallways, interior rooms, and basements who walked away uninjured.

According to the NOAA Magazine, the tornadoes that tore across the Southeast on March 1 struck after significant advance warning from the National Weather Service (NWS). Preliminary Tornado Warning lead times—the amount of time between the issuance of a Tornado Warning and the touchdown of a tornado—ranged from 12 minutes to 55 minutes, providing critical time for the emergency message to sound NOAA Weather Radio, commercial radio, and television and tornado sirens. For Enterprise, the preliminary tornado lead time was 18 minutes.

Although there are no guarantees any structure can withstand a powerful tornado, sheltering provides your best chance of survival. For this reason, early warning is essential to saving lives.  Because you may not be able to hear outdoor warning sirens inside buildings, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) weather radios are recommended for all homes, college residence halls, and offices. Weather radios are available, starting around $20, at mass-market retailers such as Target, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, etc., and on the Web. More information is available through the Weather Service's NOAA weather radio Web site: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr .

NOAA radios broadcast National Weather Service warnings, watches, forecasts, and other non-weather related hazard information 24 hours a day. During an emergency, NWS forecasters interrupt routine broadcasts and send a special tone activating local weather radios. Weather radios equipped with a special alarm tone feature sound an alert to give you immediate information about a life-threatening situation. NOAA's radio network is an all-hazards system. It provides watches and warnings for natural incidents such as hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, thunderstorms, winter storms, oil spills, 911 telephone outages, AMBER alerts, and terrorist attacks.

The hearing-and-visually impaired can get these warnings by connecting weather radios with alarm tones to strobe lights, pagers, bed-shakers, personal computers, and text printers. A battery-operated weather radio will also advise you of emergency conditions at home, work, traveling, on vacation, or at play.

A NOAA weather radio may be the best money you ever spend. Make sure the radio you buy has seven channels, an audible or visual warning alert feature, and battery backup. An important feature available on many NOAA weather radio models is Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME) technology that lets users pre-select  the alerts  they want to  receive  based upon the area where they live, allowing residents to tailor their weather radio alerts to their specific area.

Based on results from the February 23 severe weather drill, we know only 299 of 790 online survey responders were able to hear the outdoor sirens. Offices, classrooms, and residence halls equipped with NOAA weather radios were most likely to receive the warning and the subsequent “all clear” message. We encourage campus departments and individuals to make this small investment in safety—your life could depend on it!

Adapted from the NOAA Magazine and FEMA Release Number: 1679-009